These are my Peak District prints so far - I will set up a folder on the website Sheffield and thr Peak District

For family reasons we are setting up a Sheffield base. 

A wee print workshop in the back of the garage -

Went for a walk along Ladybower reservoir and back along Derwent edge in the Peak District.

Made a plate from a photo  not my preferred way of working but the weather was no condusive to sitting and sketching.

The print

This plate has been lying around needing printing - so off I went to Edinburgh Printmakers to do the deed.

The downside was - 11 tiny drypoint plates to ink up and not loose on the floor - no sneezing allowed

The inks - I apply the ink with toothbrushes and clean off with rags - I rolled over the cliffs with a small roller and red ink

I do editions of 10 - usually with around 3 to 4 trial prints - over 150 inkings of wee kittewakes!

The final print - I coloured in the boats afterwards - the print will be for sale in the pop up gallery on Saturday 

It's that time of year again! Curry Leaf 39 Bruntsfield Place have welcomed me back!

We are supporting the Chittagong Orphan school again.

It's nice to see my work hanging on the wall again. If you are in Edinburgh come and see me - Saturday and Sunday 10-4.00pm until Christmas

Not happy with this print. The original watercolour had an empty sky - but it did not translate well to a collagraph and it is simply - too green. Green is a bit of a problem in Scotland in the summer, everything is soooo green.
I have been on a monotype course - where we printed on dry paper - so I decided to return to the plate - roll over with grey and wipe off a bit. Very happy with the result - have a sky, toned down the green and picked up more details in the trees and mountains 

Yesterday's collagraph print

I have been asked if I could make a print of Bruntsfield Links or the Meadows - so today I sketched Bruntsfield Links. It remains to be seen if I can make it into a reasonable plate - watch this space.

Spent this weekend on a monotype course with the wonderful Kittie Jones. This is my best image - just three colours - red, yellow and blue. From a sketch of Loch Morlich.

This is the ghost print - you run the plate through again before cleaning it.

This was my first print - just black ink - from a sketch of Loch Carron in some weather. I just rolled black ink all over the plate (perspex) and wiped off appropriately

This was my first colour print - blue yellow black - colours rolled tooo heavily - good learning experience.

This is my last print - took just over an hour and it shows - monotypes take time - they cannot be rushed - I could add to it but I can never get back the white. Great weekend - learnt a lot - Thanks Kittie.

Continuing my experimentation with collagraph monoprints. The land is collagraph - tiling cement, carborandum, cutting and tearing. The sky and loch are thickly covered in acrylic glossy medium - which I then rolled with blue, wiped and then rolled the whole plate with a sort of pale naples yellow (viscosity inking) the blue was very oily and the yellow not. I really like doing water like this - but need some practice with clouds each print is different and some of my clouds are a bit wild - these are restrained.

Last weeks print at Edinburgh Printmakers. I am working on combining collagraph and monoprint echniques.

​ The land, houses etc. are all made by my standard collagraph techniques -  tiling cement, cutting, tearing carborandum, acrylic medium. The sky and loch on the plate was just acrylic medium so that I could wipe them completely clean. Then I used monoprinting techniques of rolling and wiping to add ink to the plate - printed in a oner on Mega - a new press at printmakers with a conveniently low bench next to it - the roller I used was seriously large and heavy. This means each plate is actually unique - hence the v.e. (variable edition)